The Lie We Were Sold About How We Experience Life

In life, we are often sold a very subtle lie.

The lie is that we experience life on four separate levels:

Mentally.
Emotionally.
Physically.
Spiritually.

And then we are encouraged to believe that one or two of these dimensions are enough.

“I am a thinker. That’s who I am.”

“I am an emotional person.”

“I enjoy physical experiences.”

“I am spiritual.”

We separate ourselves into categories and then convince ourselves that we can experience a complete life while remaining disconnected from some of the other dimensions.

But I don’t believe that is true.

I believe the deepest experience of being human occurs when all four dimensions begin to come together.

We Are the Main Character in Our Own Story

Each of us is the main character in our own life.

We experience the world through our own eyes.

We experience our own thoughts.

Our own emotions.

Our own body.

Our own spiritual journey.

But at the same time, we are supporting characters in countless other people’s stories.

We enter their lives.

We influence them.

They influence us.

Some people appear for a chapter.

Some remain for many chapters.

Some fundamentally change the direction of our story.

And when we look back at our own book of life, we can often see how significant particular people and experiences were.

Some relationships were lessons.

Some were blessings.

Some were painful.

Some were transformational.

And some introduced us to parts of ourselves that we had never previously experienced.

Our book of life tells the story of how these different experiences shaped us.

The Four Dimensions of Human Experience

We tend to separate mental, emotional, physical and spiritual experience.

But perhaps they are not four separate experiences.

Perhaps they are four dimensions of one experience.

The Mental Experience

We live in our minds.

We think.

We analyse.

We reason.

We imagine.

We remember.

We plan.

We question.

The mind is an extraordinary instrument.

But it can also become a place where we hide.

Some people live almost entirely in their heads.

They analyse everything.

They think about their feelings rather than actually feeling them.

They intellectualise relationships.

They analyse experiences instead of experiencing them.

The mind can explain life without necessarily allowing us to live it.

The Emotional Experience

Then there is emotion.

Emotion brings colour and depth to human experience.

Love.

Joy.

Grief.

Fear.

Desire.

Longing.

Excitement.

Tenderness.

Vulnerability.

Emotions can make life incredibly beautiful.

But emotions can also become overwhelming when we have not learned how to understand or regulate them.

And because emotional experiences are deeply personal, we sometimes believe that what we feel is the entirety of our experience.

But it isn’t.

It is one dimension.

The Physical Experience

Then there is the body.

The body is where life becomes tangible.

We touch.

We taste.

We smell.

We hear.

We see.

We move.

We experience warmth.

We experience closeness.

We experience pleasure.

We experience pain.

We experience another human being through physical presence.

The body brings us into the present moment in a way that the mind often cannot.

And this is where something fascinating begins to happen.

Because when we truly experience life through the physical body, the physical experience can become something far more than physical.

When the Physical Becomes Spiritual

Consider a sunrise.

You can intellectually understand what is happening.

You can explain the science.

You can understand the movement of the earth and the scattering of light.

But then you stand there and experience it.

You feel the warmth.

You see the colours.

You breathe the morning air.

You become still.

Something happens inside you.

The experience is physical.

But somehow it becomes spiritual.

The same can happen when you hear a piece of music that moves you deeply.

The sound enters through the physical senses.

But the experience reaches somewhere far beyond the ears.

Or when you hold the hand of someone you love.

The physical contact is simple.

Yet the meaning of that touch can be profound.

The body becomes the doorway to something deeper.

Intimacy: Where the Four Dimensions Can Meet

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in intimate relationships.

There is something extraordinarily profound about the intimate connection between a man and a woman when that connection involves much more than physical attraction.

There is the physical.

There is attraction.

There is touch.

There is sexuality.

But there can also be mental connection.

Emotional connection.

And spiritual connection.

When these dimensions come together, something extraordinary can happen.

Two people are not merely touching each other’s bodies.

They are meeting each other.

Mind to mind.

Heart to heart.

Body to body.

Spirit to spirit.

That is a very different experience from physical intimacy alone.

Why We Write Songs About It

Think about how much of human culture has been devoted to intimate love.

We write poems about it.

We write songs about it.

We make movies about it.

We write novels about it.

We create theatre around it.

Artists paint it.

Musicians sing about it.

Writers spend entire lifetimes trying to find the words to describe it.

Why?

Because something about profound human intimacy reaches beyond ordinary physical experience.

If it were simply physical, there would be very little mystery to it.

But there is mystery.

There is vulnerability.

There is surrender.

There is recognition.

There is the extraordinary experience of being seen by another person and allowing yourself to be fully present with them.

That can be profoundly spiritual.

Physical Intimacy Is Not Automatically Spiritual

There is an important distinction here.

Not every physical sexual experience is necessarily spiritual.

Physical intimacy can be purely physical.

The body can participate without the heart being present.

The body can experience pleasure without genuine emotional connection.

Two people can be physically close while remaining psychologically and spiritually distant.

So the spiritual dimension does not come simply from the physical act.

It comes from what the two people bring into the experience.

Presence.

Trust.

Love.

Vulnerability.

Respect.

Connection.

Consciousness.

Surrender.

When those things are present, the physical can become a vehicle for something much deeper.

The Experience of Wholeness

Perhaps what we are really searching for is not four separate experiences.

Perhaps we are searching for wholeness.

To think deeply.

To feel deeply.

To experience the body fully.

And to discover meaning and connection within it all.

When these dimensions align, something changes.

We stop merely observing our lives.

We begin participating in them.

We aren’t simply thinking about love.

We are feeling it.

We aren’t simply feeling it.

We are experiencing it through our bodies.

And we aren’t simply experiencing it physically.

We are discovering what the experience means to us.

That is wholeness.

The Ultimate Experience

I believe the ultimate human experience is spiritual.

But I don’t necessarily mean spirituality as something detached from ordinary life.

I mean the discovery of something deeper within life itself.

The spiritual experience can happen in prayer.

It can happen in nature.

It can happen in forgiveness.

It can happen in grief.

It can happen in childbirth.

It can happen in music.

It can happen in silence.

And it can happen within profound intimate connection between two human beings.

Sometimes the doorway to the spiritual is not somewhere above us.

Sometimes it is right here.

In our body.

In our emotions.

In our relationships.

In our presence.

In our capacity to connect.

Stop Living Only One Part of Your Life

Perhaps the invitation is simple:

Don’t settle for experiencing only one or two dimensions of yourself.

Think.

Feel.

Experience.

Connect.

Explore.

Be present.

Allow yourself to live through the whole of your humanity.

Because life isn’t meant to be experienced only in the mind.

It isn’t meant to be experienced only through emotion.

It isn’t meant to be experienced only through the body.

And spirituality isn’t necessarily something we have to escape into.

Perhaps the deepest spiritual experience is the one where mind, emotion, body and spirit come together.

Where we are no longer divided.

Where we are completely present.

Where we are completely alive.

And perhaps that is the extraordinary secret of being human:

The physical can become emotional.
The emotional can become mental.
The mental can become spiritual.
And the spiritual can be experienced through the physical.

The boundaries between them begin to disappear.

And for a moment, we don’t experience life in separate parts.

We experience it as one magnificent, integrated human experience.